Personal Log: Adrian Rodd

Well, a most wicked friend of mine has cruelly enticed me to create an account in Facebook. I am DETERMINED not to waste time there. On the other hand, it has this rather nifty little map, displaying all the countries I've been to! (Countries I've lived in are in red.)

I've also uploaded this rather... unusual photo of myself. (For anyone who doesn't know me, I'm the guy in the foreground. The person next to me is one of my best friends.)

Oh, and I learnt a new card game today. So it hasn't been a complete time-waster...

Night time. Sarah sat by the campfire, barely glancing at those seated around her. The camp was abuzz with excited conversations as people tried to work out amongst themselves what was going on. The novelty of the sailboat and its unidentified occupant, with the tantalising suggestion that tomorrow might bring the hope of leaving the island, had quite dispelled the subdued atmosphere of the funeral. The small hill where Libby and Ana rested now forever was enveloped in darkness. A bare few metres away, the small settlement was once more full of life.

And frustration. As always, they had been given no answers, despite persistant rumours that Jack –somehow– knew exactly who this mystery sailor was. Hypotheses flew around the fire, but it was all just wild guesswork. Sarah herself remained quiet, eating from a papaya in silence.

The man from the boat sat some distance away, on his own, drinking. They had apparently found him drunk, and he had had to wait until he was reasonably sober before swimming ashore. Once on the beach, he had returned to drinking again. He had been at it ever since. Other than Jack, few of the castaways had gone near him. His was unshaven, his dark brown hair ruffled and untidy, and there lingered what Sarah felt was a wild look in his eyes. Although that might simply be down to the drink.

Sawyer, Jin and Tom had secured the boat, bringing it in nearer the shore. Few of them had moved too close to that, either. As if it were still an intangible presence, not quite believable yet, and might evaporate like a fanciful dream at dawn if they gave it too much attention. She glanced at it briefly, and took another bite of her fruit.

A shadow approached from the side, and she looked up as the flickering firelight illuminated part of ManuelÂ’s sun-tanned face. She nodded at him; he sat down beside her.

“Have a papaya,” she said, handing him one. “Any idea what’s going on?” With someone to talk to, a little of her frustration rose to the surface. “Seems Jack is refusing to answer any questions. I’m not even going to bother. He got tired of me and my questions a long time ago.”

“I’ve heard a few things,” Manuel told her, his foreign accent reminding her once more that English was not his native tongue. He contemplated the fruit in his hand, without eating it. “That guy over there” –he pointed the papaya at the solitary sailor– “is called Desmond. Desmond, apparently, used to live in the hatch. You know, the hatch, with the computer?”

“The Swan?” She looked at him in surprise. “Of course…” she whispered, thoughtfully. There had been someone down there, entering the numbers into the computer, all on his own, day after day, month after month, every hundred minutes or so. She shivered. The loneliness, the mechanical, meaningless repetition, over and over… It was enough to drive someone insane. She remembered hearing that the man had fled when Jack, John and his little group had entered. It seemed now he had returned. “He had a boat, he left the island… and came back?” On the face of it, it made little sense. “Why? For us?”

Manuel shook his head. “No idea. I’m not sure anyone knows.” They both turned their heads to the shadowy form half slumped over the sand, bottle in hand. The sound of the waves lapped gently against the now empty sailboat. “I’m not sure, right now, he’d be able to tell you himself.”

* * *

Most of the trees in the immediate vicinity of the camp had been picked bare of fruit quite some time ago. The arrival of a sizeable human community with an instinctively sedentary lifestyle had had a not insignificant impact on their close environment. Fruit-pickers now had to venture out of earshot of the camp. Of course, they had the recently air-dropped supplies, but those had manifestly been intended for two people, not forty-five or so. And SunÂ’s vegetable garden was not quite enough to feed them all on a daily basis, either.

Recently, Sarah had strayed into the jungle as little as possible, but gathering fruit was one tangible way to contribute to the communities, and she was not about to shirk her responsabilities and become a hermit. Or a parasite, like Sawyer. Quite why anybody still put up with him was beyond her. Although now of course he had set himelf up as the provider of that essential ressource for a besieged and jittery encampment: guns. She grimaced.

So, this morning, she found herself clambering up a stooped tree as best she could, her rucksack firmly strapped to her back, ready to be filled with a precious cargo of assorted tropical fruit. It was, she told herself, probably a good thing to get away from the camp, even if only for a half hour or so. She had stayed awake part of the night thinking about the boat, and half-imagining that the new day would bring frantic activity and excitement as everyone came together to work out how best to make use of it. Who would go aboard and sail out towards the open seas, where they should head for, how to prepare for the tripÂ… But, instead, she had woken to find her campmates milling about uncertainly, and Desmond still asleepÂ… snoring quietly. No decision had been made, nobody seemed quite certain what to do, and Jack was nowhere in sight. For some reason, it had angered her sufficiently for her to decide to walk out into the jungle.

She was reaching for a mango, her legs and one arm wrapped precariously around the tree trunk, when she heard a faint rustle from below, and the sound of someoneÂ’s footsteps. A brief, mechanical clanking sound, rather like chain being dragged across leaves, reached her. She stopped still, and looked down.

A woman was walking past the tree, moving at a fast pace. Sarah could not identify her from above, and was about to call down when the woman tilted her head right back and gazed up. Sarah’s breath caught in her chest, and her limbs felt suddenly weak. Mum… She grabbed onto the tree trunk so as not slip off from sheer shock, and by the time she had recovered, the woman had hurried on, pressing deeper into the jungle. “Mum!” Sarah called, anxiously. She dropped her rucksack with a thud, and clambered down as fast as she possibly could. Her mother’s figure was just receding into the distance… still visible.

“Mum!” she called again, and began to run. As she did so, she was acutely aware of what had happened last time she had dashed after this mute, enigmatic apparition; the memory was all too fresh in her mind. But the woman was moving so fast that she had to run merely to keep her in sight, darting in and out of her vision through the trees, shadows and slanting rays of sunlight. Safety urged her to stop, but even her survival instinct took a back seat to a more pressing, overwhelming urge. She had to know what this was about.

Her surroundings as she ran, panting for breath, were becoming unfamiliar. She had no idea if or how she would be able to find her way back, but that concern, too, barely brushed against the edges of her mind. Her focus was on the receding spectre which could not possibly be here.

So focused was she that she could not recall, later, when the whispers had begun. She became aware of them suddenly, all around her, almost indiscernable as they overlapped and merged into one another, barely audible. Ghostly voices, whispers from the trees themselves, seeming to lean in and urge her on. Snatches stood out, imprinting themselves more clearly on her consciousness. She absorbed them and ran on. ‘She’s going to the Pearl… answers… mademoiselle Sarah Ng… good person… very bad people… the answers are at… going to the Pearl…’

She lost track of time. It was still morning, and she could not have been running for all that long, surely, but several times she had stumbled and had had to pause for breath. Always the woman up ahead had slowed, for a few moments, until Sarah, spurred on by a vague burst of hope, dashed towards her again, at which point she would recede into the barely visible. Half-tripping over herself, Sarah burst out into a clearing, the open space heralded by a flash of artificial orange glimpsed between the trees. She slowed, breathing hard, as she left the trees behind and stood in the clearing, staring at the sight that awaited her.

A small, wrecked plane lay upturned at the foot of a dizzying cliff, charred and smashed. It could not, she thought as she took it in with muted astonishment, have contained more than three or four people. But she was not given the luxury of observing it in lengthy detail; her mother, or her motherÂ’s silent image, had been heading for something else entirely. Close to the burnt wreckage was a hatch in the ground, and the woman was lowering herself down what was obviously a ladder.

“Wait!” Sarah called, but knew that it was futile. The woman vanished from view. Sarah ran up to the hatch, and peered down into a steep, dark drop, a rusty-looking ladder plunging into the blackness. She barely hesitated, and began to climb down. She felt drawn by an irresistable impulse that shrugged aside all glaring concerns for her own safety. This entire situation screamed at her to beware a trap, but that was immaterial. The apparition had gone down this way, and Sarah was going after it, resolute.

Today, she told herself firmly, IÂ’m getting some answers. You have to stop running from me, Mum.

She reached the foot of the ladder, guided by the light from a half-open door, and turned quickly to push it open. She stepped into a small room, and was faced on the opposite wall with a display of nine inset, antiquated television screens. All were blank, except one, which showed– But there was no time to dwell on it. Her gaze had swept round the confined space, picking up on another door, and resting almost immediately on a presence she could not choose to ignore. A woman scrambled to her feet from a chair, a surprised expression on her face, and snatched up a rifle propped against the wall. But it was not her mother. The woman, perhaps in her thirties, had brown skin and a fairly narrow face, her dark hair pulled back behind a red headband.

There was nobody else there.

Sarah took a step forward from the doorway, ignoring the very real and immediate threat of the gun. Later she would kick herself for her foolhardiness, but she had not come down here to be denied her search by a stranger, gun or no gun.

“Where’s my mum?” she demanded angrily. She pointed at the other door. “Is she in there? If you’re keeping her here…”

The woman looked at her, her expression suggesting she was trying to piece together the fragments of a disjointed puzzle from SarahÂ’s sudden entry and unexpected demand. After a few moments, her face smoothed into a more relaxed, confident look, and she smiled. She even lowered the rifle a little.

“That’s the bathroom, Sarah, and no your mother isn’t in there. But by all means, feel free to look for yourself.”

Casting her a wary, uncertain glance, unsettled by the strangerÂ’s pleasant response, Sarah did exactly that. She nudged the second door open, glanced inside, then pushed it open fully. She was met by the sight of a small lavatory, with no exit. She pulled the door shut, and faced the armed woman.

“She came down here!” she protested accusingly. The woman gave a conciliatory nod.

“I don’t doubt that’s what you saw. But believe me, no-one else but you has come down here. It’s just the two of us, and” –she smiled– “I’m definitely not your mother.”

“But I saw her!” Sarah’s frustration and anger boiled up close to the surface. The woman lifted her rifle almost imperceptibly, before changing her mind and lowering it again. “What other exits are there?”

“No exits here, Sarah. The Pearl is one of the smallest stations. Again, feel free to check for yourself. But I don’t lie to someone I’m holding at gunpoint.”

Sarah turned her head, her gaze sweeping round the small room again, then looked at the woman facing her. She closed her eyes, and sighed deeply. She had rushed after her mother without thinking – again. And lost her – again. Instead, she had run right into a trap once more, albeit this time of a different sort, and had delivered herself into the hands of a woman who was quite clearly one of the Others. Great, she thought, opening her eyes reluctantly. Mum, when I finally get hold of you, you’re going to have a lot of explaining to do.

“I assume you have a lot of questions,” the Other said, matter-of-factly. She sat down, setting the rifle down across her lap. “So I’ll start by introducing myself. You can call me Bea.”

“B?” Sarah responded to her newfound captivity by lashing out with sarcasm. “What is that, some sort of code? You answer only to A, and give orders to C? I’d tell you to call me S, but like the other… Others, you already know my name.”

The woman smiled, amused. “No, ‘Bea’,” she corrected. “B.E.A. It’s my name. The name I was born with. You’ll forgive me if I keep my family name to myself for now. And yes, we know your name. And quite a bit more about you, too.”

“Yes, you know I’m from Sydney, my mum left me when I was six months old, I’ve been to Paris, and I’m a dangerous criminal who likes to throw bottles at people’s heads,” she snapped. “I’ve heard it all before.”

“Actually, if that’s what you heard us tell you, you really haven’t been listening,” Bea chided her mildly. “You’re not a criminal. In fact, if there’s one thing we really want to get through to you, Sarah, it’s that you’re one of the good ones.”

“The ‘good ones’,” Sarah echoed, with mixed sarcasm and wariness. It sounded suspiciously similar to what Henry had told her in his cell a week earlier. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

By way of answer, Bea lifted her rifle and tapped its tip against the only lit television screen. Sarah turned her attention to it instinctively. Her eyes widened a little in surprise.

“That’s the Swan. You’ve got a surveillance camera in the Swan.”

“Yes it is, and yes we have. So we know you’ve already had a little conversation with one of our people. Which saves me from having to say to you everything he’s probably already said.”

“That I’m a good person trapped in a den of sin, murder and general badness?” She clung to her sarcasm as a lifeline as she struggled to make sense of what she was seeing and hearing.

“Pretty much, yes,” Bea confirmed calmly, and nodded. “Except the part about you being trapped, of course. There’s nothing forcing you to stay among murderers and criminals if you don’t want to.”

“What, you mean apart from the fact that the jungle is full of traps, monsters, and people like you who enjoy shooting at me? Thanks, but I’d rather take my chances bunking up with Nikki and Sayid than go solo and pitch my tent in the middle of the wild.”

Bea chuckled. “Who said anything about you going solo? Your problem is, Sarah, that you jump to too many conclusions. That’s not a good thing to do on this island.” Her voice was calm, reasonable, almost soothing. “I’m not asking you to walk out on the people on the beach just to go nowhere; I’m asking you to come with me, back to the others. Oh, don’t give me that look. You really have no idea who we are, and I don’t think Ethan gave you the best impression of us, but I promise you that’s about to change. You know, you’ll be the fourteenth survivor from the plane to join us. Well, you probably didn’t know that… Although I’m sure Ana-Lucia told you all about the people from her group that we ‘took’? Yes? Good. Now, I’m sorry to have to take you by force, but I promise, once you understand who we are and what we’re doing here, you’ll stay with us willingly… just like your fellow crash survivors have.”

Sarah gave her a long, dubious look. In part, it served to conceal, she hoped, her very real and rising sense of panic. For all her friendly words and attitude, Bea had the upper hand, and clearly intended to use it to abduct her. Just as Ethan had taken Claire. It was rather like a criminal putting on the pretence of a pleasant chat with her victim just before assaulting her. Both of them knew that Sarah was being coerced. All else was a charade, an empty mimickry of rational persuasion. The Others had already killed three of her campmates, and there was no doubt in her mind that she could very easily become the fourth. Only sheer adrenaline, and some instinctive hope of escape, kept her from breaking down into sobs of fear and despair. If she lost that adrenaline, she would become a quivering jelly.

“So tell me…” She stopped, and coughed. Her voice was cracking. “Tell me…” There. That was better. “Tell me about these stations, these hatches. The Swan, this… the Pearl…? And you implied there were others. They’re yours, then?” She almost mentioned Desmond, but decided not to. If the Others were not aware of him, she did not want to give them the faintest snippet of information. And if he was one of them –a possibility that had occurred to her during the night– then she did not want to suggest that she had seen through him. “Are you Dharma?”

Bea shook her head. “No. No, we’re not Dharma. I can’t answer all your questions yet, but regarding the stations I can tell you…” She paused, considering her words carefully. “We use some of them, as you can see, but we didn’t make them.” She stood, stretched, and raised her rifle once more. “There’ll be more answers for you when we get to where we’re going. In fact, some of your people from the plane who’ve joined us will give you a few of those answers themselves. Now I’m afraid we really must get moving.” She motioned with her gun towards the door. “If you’ll kindly lead the way…?”

Sarah hesitated, but she had little choice. At least it seemed the Others wanted her aliveÂ… for now. She walked out of the room slowly, and began climbing up the ladder. She tried not to tremble.

“Good,” Bea encouraged her, and followed her once Sarah had gone half-way. Sarah glanced down. The woman was still holding her gun, making her grip on the rungs somewhat precarious.

“The plane…” She was almost at the hatch. “The small plane, just outside. What is it?”

“No idea. That’s not ours, either.”

“Are you seriously telling me there are things on this island you know nothing about? I find that hard to believe.” Bea merely looked up at her, and smiled. Sarah sighed. “All right, then. Tell me why Henry murdered Libby and Ana. You claim to be good people–”

“What makes you think he killed them?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Sarah glared down at her angrily. “Don’t play mind games with me. They’re dead, and we both know he shot them. All his fine words about ‘good people’, and then…” She trailed off as she hauled herself up and out through the hatch. Bea was close behind her.

“You’re going to have to learn to question appearances, Sarah,” Bea told her, almost gently. “Now, stay there a moment. Don’t try anything stupid.”

Sarah straightened up, and looked around. There was no-one in sight – only the charred plane, the clearing and the trees. The two heavy metal flaps of the hatch lay on either side of the opening. She glanced at one, hesitating.

Bea had almost reached the last rung. “We have quite a walk ahead of us, so I hope you– Hey!” She fumbled for her rifle, trying to grip it without losing her hold on the ladder. “Stay put!” Sarah had crouched down to grab the edges of the hatch lid, and pushed it up with all the strength she could muster. It creaked, groaned, and fell back atop Bea with a tremendous crash. There was a cry. Sarah ran.

“Stop!” She had just reached the trees when Bea’s voice rang out behind her. Obviously she had not been knocked dizzy for too long, and had not fallen off the ladder. “Stop, or I’ll shoot!”

Yeah, as if IÂ’m going to turn and go back. She ran on as fast as she could. The echoing sound of shot split the air behind her. Then nothing. She did not dare slow down until she was a long way from the clearing, and had made sure Bea had not followed her. Then, gasping for breath, she slumped down against a tree, her entire body shaking, her legs no longer able to hold her up.

Nearby, birds chirruped peaceful in the warm, pleasant morning air.

* * *

“Manuel, I was hoping to talk to you. How are you, mate?”

SarahÂ’s wet hair fell untidily over her shoulders as she walked across the warm sand with bare feet. She had just been returning from a bathe in the sea when she had come across him setting down fresh firewood by the embers of the previous nightÂ’s fire. It was less than an hour after dawn, and few people were up yet. Manuel brushed earth and scraps of bark off his hands.

“I’m fine. Can I help you, Sarah?”

“I think so.” She nodded towards the sea. “They’re not back yet, then?” Sayid, Jin and Sun had taken the sailboat out the day before, apparently to go and investigate something on the other side of the island. The details, of course, were hazy, and there was no-one around to help clear the picture. Jack, Michael, Kate, Sawyer and –for some unfathomable reason– Hurley had, she was told, set off to cross the island towards the alleged location of the Others’ camp, in an effort to rescue Walt. They had taken guns. This felt disturbingly as if it were about to degenerate into a full-scale war. It only increased her determination to get off the island as soon as possible. Despite Bea’s assurances yesterday that she was wanted by the Others alive, she feared there was a significant likelihood the latter would conduct some sort of retaliatory strike if attacked by Jack’s rescue party. And she did not want to be around when that happened.

“Goodness knows what they’re up to.” Manuel shrugged. “Desmond’s vanished too. I saw him with John yesterday, and John’s gone as well. Eko’s spending all his time down in the Swan… Everyone’s gone traipsing off into the great unknown.”

“Rather them than me,” Sarah said. “And we’re still here.” She smiled a little. “I wanted to put a suggestion to you. I think…” She paused, just long enough to choose her words carefully. These past few days, she had become intensely suspicious of her campmates in general, but the unexpected arrival of a sailboat two days ago had altered her outlook rather dramatically. If nobody else was going to seize the obvious opportunity provided by having a boat at long last, she felt it was up to her to practice what she had been preaching, and get the people around her motivated and organised. Jack had been right about one thing, at the very least: there was little sense in her criticising his leadership methods if she was not prepared to show a little leadership initiative herself. I’ve waited almost too long. “I think we should use the boat,” she said, seriously. “I think perhaps four or five of us should go aboard, and try to find rescue. There must be navigation equipment on board. We can head in the general direction of inhabited land, if nothing else. It’s our first real opportunity, and it’s an opportunity we have to take.” She looked him in the eyes. “What d’you say?”

Manuel sighed. “Normally I would say yes, of course, you’re right. But there’s one little piece of information you should know.” He sat down on a thick log by the fire site, and motioned for her to join him. “Desmond yesterday was telling us why he came back here. He didn’t choose to. He left here intending to make for Fiji, leave the island behind for ever.”

“Then… why didn’t he?” Sarah sat down slowly, confused. “Why is he here?”

The look in Manuel’s eyes was sombre. “Because, despite the fact he had set his course towards Fiji, and sailed in a straight line, this is where he ended up.”

Sarah processed that for several long seconds, frowning as she failed to make any sense of it. “That’s not possible,” she said at last. “You can’t loop round and do a U-turn if you’re sailing in a straight line. Not even with faulty equipment, surely.”

“You couldn’t normally,” Manuel agreed. “If you were sailing on a normal sea. Desmond has a theory…” He hesitated, but Sarah’s eyes urged him on questioningly. “He thinks we’re trapped. Trapped in a… a ‘snow globe’, I think his word was. A self-contained, isolated… something,” he finished, as the adequate words to describe the idea failed him. “He thinks there’s nothing out there,” he added, sweeping his arm out towards the vast ocean and its distant horizon, illuminated by the spectacular colours of the rising sun. “Or if there is, we can’t get to it. Like one of those computer games, you know? When you reach the right end of the screen, you reappear on the left, still in the same place. No way to leave.”

Sarah laughed, very briefly, until the serious, grave expression on his face halted her. “But…” she stuttered. “Surely you don’t believe that? That’s just… Well, I don’t believe in the impossible!”

Manuel smiled wryly. “What island have you been living on?”

“I believe in the improbable,” she specified, “not in the impossible. Maybe there was some sort of instrument malfunction. Maybe he was blown off course and the compass was stuck. I don’t know. Or maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way,” she added, just as seriously. “We have only Desmond’s word for anything he says.”

Manuel looked curious. “What are you thinking?”

“Has it occurred to you that he may be one of Them? Him being on the island all this time, while they were too… coming to live among us now, just as Ethan did… I think Jack is trusting Desmond a lot too easily.”

Manuel thought about it, but did not look convinced. “Why would the Others give us a boat?”

“I… I’m not sure,” she admitted. “And I’m not saying he is one of them. I’m just saying it’s possible, and we shouldn’t be too trusting.” She paused. “I’m also saying we should use that boat, even if Desmond says it won’t take us anywhere. We have nothing to lose by trying.”

Again, Manuel considered it. This time, he nodded, slowly. “All right. That’s true.”

“So you’re with me on this?”

He smiled slightly. “Count me in. It feels good to actually be doing something.”

“Great!” She beamed at him, and got to her feet. “I’ll go and see who’s awake, and talk to them. Get more people involved. Jane, Steve…”

“Right.” He stood in turn. “I’ll talk to Nikki.”

Sarah’s smile faded. “Uhm…” He looked at her queryingly.

“What?”

“I’d rather you didn’t get Nikki or Paulo involved,” she said, rather awkwardly. “Or Tom, for that matter.”

Manuel gave her a long, searching look, and she winced uncomfortably.
“Have you quarreled?”

“Sort of,” she lied. “Just… It’s complicated. I just… I’d be grateful if we could keep them out of this. Okay?”

He shrugged. “Whatever you say… boss.” Another slight smile. She returned the smile warmly.

“Thanks. Now let’s go and get ourselves a team.”

* * *

“I don’t know… Shouldn’t we wait for Jack to get back?” Jane cast a brief, uncertain glance towards the thick jungle stretching out a long way inland. Sarah shook her head emphatically.

“We’ve no idea when Jack will be back. Rescuing Walt isn’t going to be easy. We can’t just sit around and do nothing just because he’s away. Come on, Jane! We’ve done without him before. We need to get organised.”

“What for?”

“To get ourselves off this island! We have a boat, but there’s planning to be done. And we can decide together what to do. So that everyone who wants to be involved has a say. Isn’t that what you want?”

“I don’t know…” She seemed to have been caught unawares by the whole idea. “Why do you need me, anyway?”

“Because the more brains we have working this out, the more hope we have of finding rescue,” Sarah told her firmly. “Because we need to discuss exactly what we should do. And because you have a right to be involved.”

“Well… All right, I suppose.” Jane managed a smile. “What do you want me to do?”

Sarah smiled, pleased. “For now, just wait a short while. Then go to the church in one hour. We’ll all meet up there.”

“The church?” Jane was startled. “We have a church?”

“Oh, uh, Eko started building one.” She pointed in its general direction. “You’ll find it easily; just follow the shoreline. It doesn’t look like much yet, but it’s a landmark. And since it’s not finished yet, we can use it as our meeting hall.”

“Right.” Jane nodded, somewhat more enthusiastically now. “OK. That sounds straightforward enough.”

Sarah grinned, a gradual but unmistakable feeling of excitement whispering along the edges of her mind.

“That’s settled, then. Glad to have you with us! I’m just off to talk to Craig…” She turned… and almost walked right into Tom. His face was hard, and he grabbed her by the shoulder, firmly.

“A word,” he said. It did not sound like a request. She tried to shrug him off.

“You’re hurting me! Let g–” He loosened his grip just slightly, but pulled her forward several steps, out of earshot from Jane or anyone else. She stumbled, and steadied herself angrily. “ ’the hell, Tom?”

“A simple question, Sarah.” He looked and sounded as angry as she felt. “For several days now you’ve been avoiding me. You’ve been very blatant about it, too, and I want to know why. If I’ve done something to piss you off, at least have the decency to tell me outright. This cold shoulder treatment is like a slap in the face.”

“I’ll slap you in the face for real if you don’t back off,” she warned him. “Just… get out of my way!”

Tom did not budge. “You used to pretend I was your best friend on this bloody island, and now all of a sudden, you’re not talking to me! What exactly have I done? You tell me, and you tell me now.”

She looked him in the face, her eyes cold and hard. “That’s what I’d like to know,” she said, with deliberate meaning. If anything, it only made him look more furious.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Piss off, mate,” she told him harshly, and pushed past, her hand pressing against his chest just long enough to brush him out of the way. She walked on as quickly as she could, without looking back.

* * *

“When you said the church was a work in progress… I see what you mean.” Jane stepped under the beams of the wooden structure’s roof, observing it. “Eko’s not got very far yet, has he?”

“I suppose it takes a while to build a church on your own,” Sarah commented, a little distracted. She glanced at her watch. They had all met up a short distance from the camp, just out of view from the others, but there was still one missing. Only four minutes late, though.

“He wasn’t building it on his own,” Steve corrected her. “I’ve seen Charlie help him once or twice.” He looked round. “No idea where either of them are now.” A pile of rough wooden logs lay untouched nearby, next to a discarded axe.

“Eko’s a Catholic priest, right?” Tracy asked curiously. She had arrived with Steve. The two of them, Sarah had noticed, had been spending quite a bit of time together. She thought briefly of Tom, and grimaced.

“Yes, I think so… Ah.” She waved a latecomer over as he approached. Neil joined them, nodding in greeting to the small group.

“Am I last? Sorry to keep you waiting. I’m not quite as fast and fit as you young’uns.” With his grey hair and thin, rather drawn face, he was perhaps more than twice as old as Sarah herself. She smiled back at him.

“No worries. Yes, I think that’s all of us. Now…” She considered leaning against one of the church’s support posts, then thought better of it, and remained standing. She looked round with some satisfaction at the little team she had been able to gather round her. Jane, Manuel, Craig, Steve, Richard, Neil, Tracy and herself. Not bad at all, she decided. “You already know why we’re here, more or less,” she began, taking charge of their impromptu conference. “We need to decide what to do with the boat.”

“Isn’t it Desmond’s boat?” Neil was quick to point out. “Surely we can’t decide anything without consulting him.”

“Well yes, of course, we’ll need his authorisation before we actually do anything,” she conceded. “But that shouldn’t stop us from working out what we think needs to be done, and then taking that decis- that request to him.”

“Well, do we all agree on the general idea?” Steve asked. “That we should take the boat out, go and look for rescue? Or does anyone think that’s a bad idea?” Sarah looked round once more, a little anxiously. To her relief, she saw only nods of approval. “Show of hands?” Steve suggested. “Who’s in favour?” Eights hands went up, some with less hesitation than others. Sarah smiled.

“All right, well if that’s settled,” she said, reclaiming control of the discussion, “we need to decide when we’re leaving. We need to start packing supplies. Michael and Jin have experience of being at sea; we can ask them for tips and advice. And Desmond, too. Perhaps one of them will want to come along. I think we should have a crew of four, maybe five. Has anyone here ever done any sailing?”

Neil raised his hand. “About thirty years ago. I’m probably a bit rusty.”

“I’ve done a bit too,” Tracy added. “I only know a few basics, though.”

“Well, you two have just become our resident experts.” Sarah grinned. “Want to volunteer?” The two glanced at each other, and Tracy looked questioningly at Steve. Neil shrugged.

“Sure. No reason why the kids should have all the fun.”

“If you’re going, I’ll come along too,” Steve told Tracy. The latter thought about it a moment, then smiled, and nodded. Sarah experienced a brief thrill. This was all going exactly as she had hoped. She had brought these people together, inspired them with an idea, and now they were going with it… with what she had suggested. It was no longer the usual team making the big decisions; she had seized the initiative, and found followers to support her for it!

“Then I’ll be number four,” she said, enthusiastically. “I think we’ve got ourselves a crew! Any thoughts on how soon we should leave?”

Craig glanced at the others, as if to make sure nobody else was going to speak just yet, then ventured: “How about… today?” He scratched the nape of his neck thoughtfully. “Is there any reason to delay?”

“Tomorrow morning,” Neil said. “We’ll want a full day ahead of us to cover as much ground as possible by sunlight. While we can see where we’re going. There’s no rush. And that gives us all of today to think through any details.”

“I don’t know…” Richard, a young Asian whose outfit had earned him the nickname ‘Cowboy’ among some of the castaways, put in. “If the Others have boats and want to stop us from leaving, by day we’ll stand out.”

“The raft was attacked by night,” Sarah reminded him. From the corner of her eye, she noticed a figure standing some distance away, watching them. Tom. He was glaring at them in sullen silence. She ignored him completely, and when she looked next he had disappeared.

“Yes, but by night we still have more of a chance of going unnoticed,” Neil argued. “I say we leave… well, you leave this evening, or tomorrow evening. Get yourselves clear of the island when it’s dark. And sail without lights.”

“Isn’t that risky?” Tracy asked. Richard shook his head.

“The risk of bumping into another boat is… uh, pretty minimal, wouldn’t you think? The only thing would be rocks or reefs, but if it’s that or chance a run-in with the natives…” Manuel nodded in quiet agreement.

“Neil, Tracy, Steve, you ok with slinking out under cover of darkness?” Sarah asked her prospective crewmates. Steve grinned quickly.

“You make it sound like an adventure. Yeah, fine by me.”

“I can go with that,” Neil assented. Tracy nodded.

“Then it’s agreed.” Sarah tried to contain a grin of excitement and satisfaction. “Assuming Desmond is willing, we’ll set sail by night, the first night after the boat returns from… uh… wherever it is Sayid has taken it. When Michael and Jin get back, we’ll ask them for advice. In the meantime, we can start preparing supplies. Steve, Richard, Craig, would you mind going out to the caves to stock up on water? Tracy, you, me and Jane can see to the food. Manuel, uh… Best go with Steve. If there are four of you carrying back bottles, we should have enough. Let’s put our males to good use.” She smiled. “Neil, could you see if you can find Desmond, talk to him?”

“All right, lads, we have our marching orders,” Richard joked. “Let’s get hopping.” Sarah grinned.

“I’ll see if anyone knows where our sailor has got to,” Neil agreed.

“Shall we look for fresh fruit?” Jane asked Tracy, as they began to walk towards the trees. The little team was scattering, each turning to their own tasks. Manuel lingered just long enough to give Sarah a brief, friendly tap on the shoulder.

“Congratulations,” he told her warmly. “Maybe you’ve just taken the first step to getting us home.”

Sarah smiled, her face glowing.

* * *

“Let’s see… Peanut butter? Nah, we have to keep the boys healthy. How about two packets of muesli instead?”

Sarah and Jane both laughed easily as Tracy plucked a box from the makeshift ‘pantry’ erected near the tarpaulin water trough. Somebody had cobbled together a few shelves, which had been stacked with communal food reserves from the air-dropped crates. For the first time in quite a while, Sarah felt almost relaxed. She felt in control of her own life once more, and was only now realising how much she had missed it. She had found purpose, and shared that purpose with others. After sixty-seven days on the island, they finally had a very real glimmer of hope… and they were seizing hold of it with confident determination.

“Muesli is fine with me,” she said, laughing, holding open her bag so that Tracy could drop it in. “But better put a bit of peanut butter in too.”

“How long do you think you’re going to be at sea?” Jane asked, looking over the shelves. “Nutribars. Those are bound to come in useful.”

“Yeah, take a stack of those. As for how long… I really have no idea. But the only way we’re going to leave here is by boat, so how long really isn’t an issue we can do much about. We just have to get out there, and… well, that’s the only thing we can do, really.” Sarah’s expression turned somewhat more serious. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s that I’m not going to stay the rest of my life on this island. I have family back home, and I’m going to see them again. I had a life before I crashed here, and I’m going to get it back. I’m not growing old on some island lost in the middle of nowhere, and I’m certainly not dying here. There’s nothing that can hold us here if we’re determined to leave. We’ve been here two full months; eight of us have died already. Time to go home.” She lifted her bag, assessing its weight. “We’ll store this in my tent, with the fruit.”

Tracy nodded, as they walked away from the ‘pantry’. “Steve’s got the water in his.” She paused. “You know, about what you’ve just said… You’re quite right.” Sarah gave her a grateful smile. “And when we get home–” Tracy went on.

A deafening, overpowering screech filled the air, bursting in on SarahÂ’s eardrums, causing her to drop her bag and cry out in pain. It was like nothing she had ever heard before; the grinding wail of a thousand machines working on overload, on the verge of imploding, tearing through her mind, numbing her thoughts. At the same time, the shattered air turned an intensely bright white, which enveloped and seemed to permeate not only the heavens but the very trees, the sand and even the outlines of the two women beside her, blurring them into shadowy ghosts shimmering against the unbearable brightness. It was everywhere, wherever she turned her burning eyes. She clenched her eyelids tight shut, clamping her hands over her ears against the pain, barely able to stand as it seemed to press her down into the intense white sandÂ…

Then, as suddenly as it had come, it ended. The terrible noise stopped, leaving her with a loud ringing in her ears, and the brightness faded away. She opened her eyes cautiously. There was a whizzing sound, something hurtling through the air, and she jumped back, alarmed, when it landed less than twenty metres away. She stared at it, dizzy and confused; it took her a moment to realise what it was. Some sort of metal hatch, upturned, twisted and scarred, bent out of shape by some unseen and unimaginable force. On it was painted a single word, in large letters of warning: QUARANTINE.

She turned her head up to the skies. Nothing. The air was clear once more, clouds drifting lazily overhead. All around her, people were recovering and making sure nobody was hurt. Sarah looked at Tracy, her ears still ringing with the aftermath.

“What the hell was that?”

* * *

Sarah ran through the jungle, breathing fast, her lugs pumping. Her feet pounded against the soft earth, almost catching against thin, stray roots. The sun beat down over the back of her neck and her bare arms. Sweat pearled in the small of her back. There were voices up ahead.

She ran past a tree, expecting to see them, but still the jungle stretched out ahead of her. The voices sounded muffled, but there were many of them, and it sounded as if some were argueing. Not far nowÂ… She ran on, breathing as steadily as she could.

“…you saw me put those in my box!”

“No way.”

“Give me my stuff, man!”

“Hold on, take it easy.” That was Sawyer. She went on running. “You guys are like locusts. How about a little order here?”

Your sheriffÂ’s order, Sawyer? Your order with guns? Sawyer the murdererÂ… It had been three days since the man in the Swan had told her about the crimes of some of her campmates, and she had done her best to avoid every one of those he had named. It had not been too difficult. Less easy was going to sleep at night, alone in her tent, knowing the kind of people who were sleeping just a few metres away. And walking among them all in broad daylight, murderers on the loose, beyond the reach of justice here on this speck of an island lost in the immensity of the worldÂ’s largest ocean. Their crimes unseen, unknown to allÂ… except me. I alone see them for what they are. See them in an all new lightÂ… She arrived at the scene of the conversation, catching her breath, and took in the sight with wide eyes.

“Wow…” she whispered. Tracy had not been lying. This had to be seen to be believed.

Crates, brimming with boxes of food such as they had first found in the hatch, sat in the midst of the jungle, beside crumpled parachutes, and surrounded by castaways grabbing anything they possibly could. She blinked, her mind trying to process and rationalise what she was seeing. CratesÂ… of supplies. Freshly delivered. Here. To this island. To us.

No, of course, not to them. The DHARMA logo was everywhere. These supplies were intended for the original inhabitants of the erstwhile deserted Swan station. She shook her head. The implications were stunning, but after a fast run through the forest, she did not feel up to wrapping her mind round a new mystery. She approached slowly.

“Shouldn't we let someone a little more trustworthy take care of this?” Charlie suggested.

“Like you, babynapper?” Sawyer retorted sarcastically. Sarah winced in sympathy for the young Englishman, but he appeared unfazed. After his public shaming during the ‘incident’ with Claire’s baby, Charlie had withdrawn from his fellow survivors, physically isolating himself by relocating his tent to the edge of the small settlement. He had spoken very little to anyone, and had taken to wearing a hooded jumper at night, as if better to conceal himself from the judgemental eyes of his fellows. He was looking better now, however. Almost back to his usual self. His incomprehensible misdeed forgotten… were it not for Sawyer’s facile taunt reminding them. She glared at the American discreetly. If only they knew what she did… Would it, she wondered, wipe the smug, confident smile off his face?

“No, like Hurley,” Charlie said, without taking the bait. “Why not Hurley? He's done it before, he can do it again.” All eyes turned to the obese and usually cheerful Hispanic man. They all remembered the feast he had organised for them two weeks earlier. To Sarah’s surprise, he withdrew from their gazes with something akin to alarm.

“No. No way! Not me, no. Not again, no.”

Libby came to his rescue. “Okay, hey, hey, how about no one's in charge, okay? I'm sure everyone can manage to just take what they need.”

“Great plan, Moonbeam,” Sawyer shot back with a smirk. “And after that we can sing Kumbaya and do trust falls.”

Sarah sighed. Ignore him, she thought, and pushed her way forward towards the food. “Excuse me… Excuse me, mate… Thanks…” When Tracy had told her about a food drop out in the jungle, she had thought to grab her rucksack before she dashed off. While everyone around her continued to loot the supplies, she began to fill her bag, calmly but quickly, ignoring them all. A tin of peas. A loaf of bread. Tinned peeches… not her favourite fruit, but she could not be too fussy. A packet of rice. Tinned tomatoes. Breakfast cereals – she snatched them up rudely before another woman could. And… She smiled, lifting the precious jar out of the smashed crate carefully. Strawberry jam. And this time she even had bread to go with it. She wedged it into her rucksack. She had shared her first jar with Tom and a few others, but this time she would enjoy it in her own tent. Or maybe take some to Claire, Charlie… Maybe Jane… Not Tom. She could see him standing a mere few metres away, pausing with some box of food in his hand, looking at her. She pretended not to have seen him, diving her arm in for anything else she could grab.

She had been avoiding Tom as well, and she had, perhaps, been rather too obvious about it. That OtherÂ’s first comment, followed by HenryÂ’s cryptic warning, had been enough for her to steer clear of the young man she had, until recently, considered her friend. HenryÂ’s words were simply too troubling for her to shake off and ignore. Tom had become suspect in her eyes. There was no doubt he had done something, and surviving for close to two months on this peril-ridden island had finally begun to teach her extreme caution.

She picked up her bag, weighing it, and nodded to herself, then tied it shut and slung it over her shoulders. More people were arriving, pushing in to get at what was left of the airdropped supplies. She wound her way through them, leaving them to it. Their squabbles over food were not her concern. Nor was, she decided, the tantalising mystery of where this food had come from. She had grown weary of pondering mysteries. For the first time, the realisation struck her that it was so much easier simply to accept what was going on, and to make the most of it when some unseen benefactor decided to start literally dropping bread and jam from the sky. After all, nobody else seemed to be troubled by the how and why of it all. Perhaps they had worked out the right attitude to adopt to this island all along.

Adjusting the straps of her bag to ease the weight of the load on her back, she walked through the jungle alone. There was a smile on her face.

To hell with questions she could never hope to answer. To hell with Tom, and Sawyer, and Nikki and Kate and Jack, people she wanted no more to do with. Today, she would enjoy bread and strawberry jam, and pretend, for as long as she could, that everything was exactly as it should be.

* * *

Sarah sat wearing shorts and a light t-shirt in the wheelchair outside her tent, her bare legs stretched out before her, and allowed the warm caress of the sun to slowly dry her recently washed hair. She closed her eyes with a happy smile and popped the last piece of a slice of bread into her mouth. She exhaled a faint sigh of contentment.

“Sarah, right?” For a moment, she did not stir. She kept her eyelids shut, chewing slowly, letting the delicious strawberry spread soak into her tastebuds. There was a shuffling of sand as someone walked up to her. A male voice, a little hesitant. “Uh, Sarah?” Perhaps he thought she was asleep. She was tempted to let him think so. Finally, she opened one eye, lifting her hand to shield it from the sun. She shifted her legs a little.

“Yes, I’m Sarah. And you’re Bernard, if I remember correctly. How’re you doing?”

“Not bad.” Rose’s husband glanced back over the rest of the beach before turning his attention to her. “I’ve come to ask you a favour. Word has it you’ve been saying we should do something to get off this island.”

“I have?” She frowned faintly, trying to remember. “Oh, well… maybe. Who told you that?”

“Manuel. He’s already agreed to help.”

Sarah straightened up part-way in her wheelchair. “Help with what?” she asked, trying not to sound too interested.

“Getting us off this island,” Bernard told her, his expression earnest, his voice perfectly serious. “We know now that there are planes flying overhead, at least from time to time. Remember the supply drop yesterday? Well, of course you remember… Anyway, we have fires burning at night, but if it flies over during the day… I’m building an S.O.S. sign,” he explained. “Literally, a big three letters, on the sand. Big enough to be seen from high above. Only it’s going to take time, and effort, and–”

Sarah listened, frowning slowly. He definitely seemed eager, confident that it could work. But she found herself shaking her head. She stood.

“Sorry.”

Bernard looked at her, puzzled and disappointed.
“You won’t help?”

“If there was a plane, it came last night, yes? If it didn’t see our fire, it’s not going to see your S.O.S. sign. It’s a waste of time.”

“Last I saw, we all had more time than any of us knew what to do with. Listen, wait…” He moved to stand beside her as she walked round to the entrance of her tent. “It’s worth a try, surely? Sarah, I know this can work. I know… I know there’s a way we can get rescued. We just have to work together, and stop waiting and doing nothing and hoping that things will sort themselves out on their own. Nobody’s going to help us if we don’t help ourselves.”

She shook her head again, not even looking at him as she lifted up the flap. Going down to the beach to work with the othersÂ… No. Watching, and wondering what secrets lay behind the eyes of the people working beside her. Making small talk, while all their unseen guilt remained buried within. Help these trapped murderers escape back into the wider world. The idea held no appeal at all. Let them help themselves and one another, if they really wanted to. She felt a little sorry for Bernard, but then he did not know what she did. And for all I know he throttled some old woman just before getting on the plane, she thought.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and crawled into her tent, pulling the flap shut firmly behind her. She did not spare Bernard even another glance, and sat waiting until she heard him leave. With a sigh, she sank back onto the sand, her head resting on her pillow from the Swan. Within her tent, at least, no-one would trouble her. The beach outside need not even exist.

* * *

November 25th. 65th day on the island.

Today IÂ’ve heard the most awful news. IÂ’m still in shock as I write this. Libby and Ana-Lucia are dead.

She sat outside her tent once more, this time with her diary propped over her thigh, scribbling with a faintly trembling hand. It seems Henry somehow got out of his cell, found a gun, and because they were there in the Swan, shot them. I donÂ’t know much more than that, but it seems he got away. He also wounded Michael.

She paused, biting the nail on the index of her left hand. IÂ’m having trouble reconciling this with the conversation Henry and I had last week. But then, what do I know? IÂ’m not making sense of anything right now. All I know is, two of us are dead. Just like that.

The funeralÂ’s later today. A pause. Yet another funeral.

She closed her pen slowly, and looked up as Jane approached her. The young black woman gave a weak smile.

“Hi. Mind if I join you? I, uh… I’m not feeling up to being alone.”

“I know how you feel,” Sarah said kindly, and meant it. “Sure. Take the wheelchair; I’ll grab the blanket from my tent.”

“No, it’s ok, I can sit in the sand.” She did so, and looked up at her, her face rather pale. “You’ve heard? You’ve heard… of course. Everyone has.”

“Yeah.” Sarah found she did not know what to say.

“One morning you’re just outside, getting on with your life as best you can here, and… wham. You find out two people you know have been killed.” Her eyes held a flicker of anguish, of deep-set confusion. “Did you know them well?”

“I… I don’t think I ever talked to Ana,” Sarah admitted. She did not mention she had been avoiding the woman because she strongly suspected her of being a cold-blooded murderer. “Libby… Libby, we talked, a few times. She… uh, she helped me, once. When I had a lot of my mind, she…” She swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat. “She gave me good advice,” she finished, softly. Jane nodded slowly. The ensuing silence was oppressive. Sarah felt herself nodding in turn, very slowly, for no reason at all. It was Jane who eventually spoke.

“You know, there’s something I’ve been thinking, and it’s so absurd that… To think it now, when...” She gazed up into Sarah’s face. “I was thinking that today is Thanksgiving.” Her tone was bitter. “Thanksgiving…” she repeated, in a whisper.

Sarah’s lips twitched into a grim smile, very briefly. “I know what you mean.” It all seemed so far away – another world. So meaningless. “Today’s also November 25th,” she added quietly. “One month until Christmas.” Jane said nothing, and that heavy silence descended upon them once more. From the corner of her eye, Sarah saw something, and turned her gaze to focus on it. Charlie stood some distance away, alone, and, as she watched, he seemed to be tossing something far into the waves. She kept her gaze on him distractedly, and saw him do it again, then again. He was throwing things into the ocean. She was too far to even hasard a guess as to what. Jane got to her feet.

“You’ll be coming to the funeral?”

Sarah nodded. No doubt everybody would. Their little community, coming together for onceÂ… for this.

She bit her lip, hard, and tried to ignore the sudden stinging in her eyes.

* * *

Sunset. The camp settlers had gathered, quietly, atop the low hill which had become by necessity their cemetary. Boone and Shannon’s graves were set side by side, but the grim-faced assembled castaways were standing beside two narrow open pits near the final resting places of their previous dead. Libby and Ana-Lucia had already been lowered into their fresh graves, wrapped and covered in makeshift body bags – the tarpaulin roofs of their tents, a poor substitute for a coffin. Somebody coughed. A cool breeze fluttered in from the sea. Sarah kept her eyes on the ground.

Almost everyone had come. Ana and Libby had been late arrivals to their sometimes precarious community, united only in sorrow, but they had been accepted into this fragile, stranded little settlement. They had been crash survivors like the rest of them, and they had integrated into camp life, contributing as best they could during the tragically brief amount of time they had lived here. They had survived the ordeal of the plane crash, rebuilt lives for themselves, only to die just two months later. And even if Ana had been a murderer, at that moment it barely mattered. She had become a victim, too, and Sarah could not help but experience a sense of grief, of confused and wordless emptiness, while Jack, ever their leader in times of trouble, began to speak.

“Ana-Lucia Cortez was– Before we crashed, she was a police officer. I don't think it was easy for her being here. But I think she did the best she could. She was a woman of few words, and I'm going to follow her example. Rest in peace, Ana.”

There were nods, silent ones. Manuel muttered something inaudible. Paulo looked grim. Michael nursed his arm wrapped in a sling after his gunshot wound. He looked as if he would have prefered to be anywhere but here. SurvivorÂ’s guilt, perhaps. He was lucky to be alive.

When Hurley stepped up to the edge of Libby’s grave, his voice was choked with emotion. “Libby was… She was… She… Libby was a psychologist, or psychiatrist… one of those.” Sarah bit her lip, and wiped at the corner of her right eye. This was more difficult even than she had expected. Hurley went on bravely: “Either way, she probably helped a lot of people. She helped me. She was my friend. It's not fair that this happened to her. It's not.” He looked over at Michael. “I'm going with you. Goodbye, Libby.”

Going with you? Yet again something she had not been informed of. No matter. It was of no importance now. Not any more.

She lifted her eyes slowly, just in time to see Claire slip her hand quietly into Charlie’s. Sarah smiled, very weakly. Some good, at least… But then her gaze crossed Tom’s, staring at her fixedly. She lowered her eyes again quickly. He was making her feel distinctly uncomfortable… all the more so as he had once been her one source of support and strength on the island. She had been avoiding him since–

“Boat…”

It had been little more than a whisper, coming from Sun, but she looked up immediately. That one word, so utterly unexpected, sounded out of place, unreal, and her breath caught in her chest as her gaze travelled out over the sea… and came to rest on a sailboat, drifting on the waves, slowly, towards the shore. It was a small distance out yet, and it was not a large one, but it was definitely, unmistakably a– “Boat!” Sun said again, her tone one of mixed astonishment and excitement. A stir swept through the smallish crowd by the graves, and some began to run down the hill, towards the nearby seashore.

“Are we rescued?” Charlie exclaimed, a burst of almost disbelieving joy lighting up his face. “Saved?” someone else put in. Murmurs rose from among them. Sarah moved with the swell, down to the water. She gazed at the sailboat the whole while, transfixed, walking mechanically, her pace quickening with everyone else’s. A boat! It seemed… amazing, miraculous, wonderful, incredible; words failed her! And none of them had seen it coming!

“Don’t let it get away!” Jane called, anxiously. A stab of fear brushed against Sarah’s heart, dampening her elation. It was difficult to tell from this distance, but she could see no-one on the deck. Surely it was not adrift? Still, she told herself, shoring up her sense of hope, even if it is, it’s still a boat! Our way off the island! “Hey!” she yelled out over the water. “Hey! Over here!”

Others joined her. Jack, Sayid and Sawyer had pulled their tops off, kicked off their shoes, and were running into the ocean, swimming out towards it with fast, powerful strokes, as quickly as they possibly could.

“Make noise, make noise!” Nikki urged them all on almost frantically. “Hey, come on! We’re over here! Come on!” Somehow, Kate was holding binoculars and scrutinising the sailboat through them.

“You see anything?” Charlie asked her.

“No.”

“Maybe it’s a trap?” the young Englishman suggested worriedly. Sarah looked at him.

“What do you mean, a trap?” asked Hurley.

“Think positive!” Sarah told them, turning her head back towards the seas. You can certainly talk, girl… How long is it since you’ve been thinking positive, anyway? “This is our ticket off this island!” she insisted, with almost fierce determination.

“No, I mean… what if it’s the Others?” Charlie said. Jin glanced at him, frowning in concern.

“Others?” he pronounced in broken English. After all these weeks, this was one English word he had learnt to recognise.

Claire took Charlie’s arm and looked up into his face, gently. “It isn’t a trap,” she soothed, without allowing the faintest trace of doubt into her voice.

“Let’s hope…” Sun whispered.

SarahÂ’s eyes were on the three men in the water. As she watched they reached the boat, and pulled themselves aboard. They moved onto the deck cautiously. She waited tensely.

She stumbled back, startled, and almost tripped over herself when several gunshots rang out. Her heart leapt in her chest, missing several beats and leaving her gasping for breath. Cries of dismay and fear rose from the gathered survivors.

“Everybody back off the beach!” she heard Paulo say, urgently.

“What about Jack and the others?” Charlie asked, anxiously. Jin took a step towards the water’s edge, but Sun held him back.

“They’re all right!” Sarah told them loudly. “All three of them, they’re still standing!” Peering through her binoculors, Kate nodded, reassuring them.

“No-one’s been hurt.”

“Others!” Jin said tensely, pointing towards the sailboat. There were no further shots to be heard. Jack, Sayid and Sawyer did not appear to be moving, but all three were clearly still on their feet. For a few seconds no-one spoke.

“I’m going in,” a familiar voice said abruptly. Tom was beginning to pull his t-shirt off. Sarah turned to glare at him, her eyes blazing briefly.

“Don’t be stupid!” she snapped. Tom froze, looked at her with a strange expression on his face, then tugged his t-shirt back down and turned away.

“Sayid’s jumping back into the water,” Kate announced. They could all see him, and even hear a faint echo of the splash, as he began to swim back towards them. On the deck, Jack was lowering himself out of sight, presumably into a cabin or compartment. Still no further shots. Sarah chewed at her lip with undiminishing concern.

It seemed like ages before Sayid finally emerged from the water, his hair and bare torso dripping with water. He walked up to them, meeting their tense, worried, expectant faces with a shake of the head.

“It’s not a rescue boat,” he said, simply. Sarah breathed in deeply, and released her breath with a sigh, closing her eyes. Not a rescue.

“Is it the Others, dude?” Hurley asked him.

“The Others?” Sayid sounded surprised at the idea. “No. No, it’s not the Others. The gunshots were… a misunderstanding. Nobody’s hurt. But I don’t think the boat came looking for us.”

“Why?” Sarah pressed him, tensely. Her reluctance to even talk to the Iraqi temporarily forgotten in view of the situation. “Who’s on board? Who are the crew? What are they doing here?”

“There’s only one man on board,” Sayid told them, his voice impassive as ever. He walked up the warm sand to recover his discarded top. “And he’s too drunk to be of any help right now.” He looked at them. “I think he’s lost, like the rest of us.”

“But where did he come from?” Sarah insisted. Sayid’s dark eyes focused on her. She flinched. His steady calm, which she had once found so reassuring, now unsettled her. It struck her as the calm of a man not quite sane… a man without a conscience. No longer the calm of reason, but a calm without a soul. Henry’s words, his warning, whispered in the edges of her mind, never quite leaving her.

“He came from here,” Sayid said, without blinking. “He was already on the island.”

A pause, while that sank in. Then, heading up the hill with barely a backward glance: “Now, if someone would be so kind as to help me, we still have two graves to fill in.”

* * *

“I’m sorry, that is not a black pebble.” Tom placed his hand firmly, albeit gently, over Sarah’s as the latter tried to move a small stone from one grid square to another. She frowned, pulling it free, and lifted the offending pebble to the sunlight.

“It’s certainly not white,” she said. “It’s one of mine, Tom.”

“No, I moved that there towards the beginning of the game. Yours are the black ones. And that… is definitely not black.”

Sarah’s frown deepened, looking almost comical by association with her somewhat amused smile. She turned the pebble slowly between her fingers. They had gathered the stones up from the rocky area further down the beach, and Tom had drawn a crude board on the sand with his finger… the most basic of equipment, but enough for a simple game of draughts. “It’s… dark,” she said, not sounding entirely convinced.

“It’s white,” Tom said stubbornly. “It’s one of mine.”

Sarah laughed light-heartedly at his serious expression. “You said you were good at draughts… No wonder, if you win by cheating!” She observed the pebble gain. “It’s… it’s… well, it’s sort of brown,” she conceded at last. “Who picked this one, anyway?”

“Brown is closer to white than black.” Tom finally cracked a slight smile. “Give it here. Sorry.”

Sarah smiled. “There’s a simple way to find out… Count the number of pebbles on each side.”

“Hi! Is that… draughts?” They looked up to see two of their campmates, Nikki and Manuel, approach up the beach. Sarah put the stone back down, and smiled at them. “Who’s winning?” Nikki asked cheerily.

“He is.” Sarah pointed her finger towards her friend. “But only because he cheats,” she added with a wicked smile.

“It’s white!” Tom announced triumphantly, as he finished counting. “What was that about cheating, then?”

Sarah laughed. “I demand a recount,” she joked. “Sit down, you two? There’s plenty of room on the sand.”

Manuel glanced up and down the beach, as if to confirm her obvious claim, then sat down slowly beside her. “Mind if we join you?” he asked curiously, while Nikki sat herself down next to Tom. “Play as teams?”

“Sure,” Sarah said agreably. “I was losing this game anyway.” Tom sighed, nodded, and gathered up the pieces. “I’m counting that as a surrender on your part,” he said with a quick smile. Sarah stuck her tongue out at him playfully. “So,” he said, with a quick glance at his new team-mate Nikki. He and Manuel were setting the pebbles for a fresh game. “It’s not often we see you straying far from Paulo.”

“Oh, Paulo’s being his usual unsociable self,” Nikki told him dismissively. “He’s probably in our tent. And I don’t think he knows how to play draughts.”

“I’m not sure I remember all the rules myself,” Manuel admitted. He looked a pebble over before setting it down. “Is this black, or white?”

“White,” Sarah told him. “And don’t worry; the rules are simple.”

“Gotcha. I think we’re all set…” He paused. He appeared to have something on his mind. “Do you two mind if I ask you something?”

“Depends what it is,” Tom said with a shrug.

“What did you think of Sawyer’s little display last night?”

“Sawyer? I try to ignore most of what Sawyer does,” Sarah said firmly. “Your opening move,” she reminded her opponents.

“Yes,” Manuel said thoughtfully, with a slow nod. “Nikki told me you have… your own little group. Sort of?”

“Not really.” Tom moved a piece, then glanced up with mild curiosity. “Is this going somewhere?”

“I’ve told him about the capsule heap,” Nikki put in, casually. Sarah and Tom exchanged a glance.

“I’m surprised you kept it to yourselves,” Manuel commented, his tone neutral. “It sounds like quite a find.”

“It’s more puzzling than anything else,” Sarah said, cautiously. “I suppose Nikki told you about the notebooks inside the capsules? They’ve been there twenty years. Whatever they once were, they ceased to mean anything back… well, when I was just a kid. Our move,” she added. “Here?” She pressed the tip of her finger onto one of the squares. Manuel nodded.

“Could I see it?” he asked. He was trying to sound casual, but he was obviously curious. Sarah and Tom exchanged another, wary glance.

“It’s a long way out,” Tom said at last. “A very long way out. If we left now, we’d have to sleep in the jungle.”

“And it’s dangerous,” Sarah added quickly. “Nikki, did you tell him about the bridge? I don’t think anyone would want to cross that again. Plus we got shot at.”

“We think it’s the Others’ territory,” Tom said, moving a pebble.

“Ethan’s people,” Sarah agreed. “Not a good idea.”

Manuel nodded slowly. He did not appear put off. “Aren’t you intrigued, though?” he asked, after several seconds.

“Not enough to hike back out there,” Sarah answered firmly. “We’ve been there once, seen it, and we didn’t learn anything from it. The notes are in English, but it’s all gibberish. They were writing for someone who knew what they were writing about. Except that that someone never bothered to read it.” She paused. “There’s something slightly… sinister, about all those notebooks piling up there for nothing,” she added at last, and grimaced.

“Oh, I wouldn’t call it sinister,” Tom disagreed, much to her surprise. “More of a mystery.”

“Our very own island mystery, eh?” Manuel smiled. “Will you show me there?”

“I’m not sure I’d be able to find my way on my own,” Nikki interjected by way of explanation. Tom appeared hesitant.

“We’d have to pack supplies,” he pointed out. “And, as Sarah said, it’s not safe.”

“Tom!” she said, dismayed. “You’re not seriously thinking of going back out there?” Tom looked at her, considered it for a moment, then gave a non-commital shrug.

“We didn’t look at all the notebooks,” he said, almost apologetically. “It was pouring with rain, remember. And we only took a quick look round the area. We may have missed something.”

“Well this island’s mysteries can stay buried, as far as I’m concerned,” Sarah said, scowling. “Look, you want to see what’s in the notebooks?” She got to her feet, visibly agitated, and looked at Manuel. “There’s no need to go trekking half-way across the island. I’ll show you what’s in the notebooks. I’ve got one in my tent. It’ll tell you nothing. In fact, you know what? You can keep it. I don’t know why I took it in the first place.”

“Easy, now…” Tom got to his feet more slowly, and gave her a look of some concern. It was mirrored in Nikki’s faintly puzzled expression. Sarah took a deep breath, steadying herself.

“Sorry, it’s just… an experience I’d rather not relive. I’ll go and get the notebook. Manuel, you can tell us what you think about it.”

She walked away from the makeshift draughts board at a brisk pace, but heard someone hurry after her. “What, Tom?” she asked irritably, without glancing back.

“What, what? You had me worried just then.”

She glared at him. “Have you forgotten what it was like? The first time?”

“No, but I do think you’re over-reacting a little,” he said calmly.

“Over-reacting?” she repeated indignantly. “Tom, twice I’ve wandered deep into the jungle. Both times I almost got killed! Pardon me for having developed an intense paranoia of anything further than a few metres out from the camp.”

Tom nodded slowly, observing her with a probing look. “Is this about your vision by the capsule heap? That bright white light you told me about?”

Sarah came to a sudden stop, and turned to face him. There was anger in her eyes. “No, Tom, it is not. It’s about the jungle being a bloody dangerous place. When it’s not traps, it’s people trying to shoot you off bridges. Nobody’s been killed at the camp itself… well, except Scott, but that was Ethan, and Ethan’s dead. The camp is the safest place we’ve got, and for some reason I don’t feel like risking my life to satisfy someone else’s curiosity. That’s what this is about.”

“All right… All right.” Tom’s tone was soothing. “I get your point. If I were in your place, I’d probably feel the same.” Sarah gave him a meaningful look, before continuing on to her tent. “But,” Tom went on, following her, “I can understand Manuel, too. He’d want to see this for himself.”

“Well then Nikki can try and take him there,” Sarah said stubbornly, from inside her shelter. She re-emerged, rolled-up notebook in hand. She prodded its tip against her friend’s chest. “It’s not up to you, or me. She’s the one who told him about it. For that matter, I can’t say I’m entirely happy at her blabbing, either.”

“Why not?” Tom met her gaze pointedly. “We haven’t sworn her to secrecy. It’s a free island.”

“Yes, but what if she tells Hurley? The whole damn camp will know about it!”

“So?” He paused. “Sarah… I’m struggling to understand the problem here. Why are we keeping this a secret?” When she walked back towards the others without replying, he pressed: “Is this about Jack? Jack, Locke and the rest of them? Some sort of rivalry? Oh, don’t give me that look. You keep complaining that they’re keeping us –you– out of the loop, that they keep all their findings a secret. And you’re right. You had to insist to get Jack to show you to the Swan. Danielle, and his notes, Sayid kept to his little circle of initiates. You’re right about all that. But playing tit for tat, keeping your own secrets just to spite them… Sarah, I’m sorry to say, but there’s something profoundly childish about that.” She whirled to face him, furious, and he lifted his hands in a defensive gesture to placate her. “I’ve said my piece. As your friend, I think you needed to hear that.”

She gave him a long, hard, wordless glare, then turned and strode over to Manuel, a dark look on her face. She all but thrust the notebook into his hand. He gave her a small, grateful if somewhat bemused nod. “Keep it,” she told him, then added suddenly: “We’ll take you part-way.”

“You will?” Manuel was visibly surprised.

“Absolutely.” She turned to scowl at Tom as he joined them. “We’ll take you as far as the bridge, maybe, but no further. If you’re sure you really want to go.”

Manuel shrugged. “What else is there to do around here? This is the first time I’m involved in anything interesting. It beats playing draughts… fun as that may be.”

“Right,” she said, still looking distinctly angry or upset. “Well, go and pack some water, food and any other supplies. You’ll be spending several nights out there. We’ll meet up here in ten minutes. Flick through that” –she pointed at the notebook– “in the meantime. Tell us if you have a flash of inspiration, or even better, if you lose interest.”

“O-kay…” Manuel said, uncertainly, with his audible foreign accent. Perhaps he was beginning to wonder what he had got himself involved in. Sarah could only hope.

“Should we ask Sawyer for guns?” Nikki asked.

“No!” Sarah said immediately. “No,” she repeated tensely when they all looked at her. “I don’t want to give him the satisfaction. We’ll just be careful.”

Tom shook his head quietly.
“See you all in ten minutes,” he said. Sarah was already walking back towards her tent.

* * *

She looked almost reproachfully at ManuelÂ’s backpack as he walked up to her and Tom, chatting casually with Nikki along the way. He seemed, she thought, completely oblivious to the potential danger ahead, as if he had paid not an ounce of attention to her earlier warnings. It irritated her, worsening her already tense mood, but she kept it to herself. The moment he reached her, she nodded curtly, turned, and walked past the first trees into the jungle.

She remained ahead of the other three, who strolled behind at a more leisurely pace, engaged in conversation. She paid little attention to what they were talking about. Instead, her attention was on the ‘path’ ahead, and on any of Rousseau’s traps which might remain sprung, unseen, among the leaves or within the underbush. This is a bad idea, she thought unhappily.

A bird cried from somewhere off to the side. She started, and forced herself to relax.

“Oh, Sarah?” She glanced over her shoulder at the sound of Manuel’s voice. “I’ve taken the draught pebbles. We can finish that game when we stop for the night.”

“I’m not staying here through the night,” she replied, focusing her attention up ahead once more. “I’m spending tonight in my tent. And every other night until we get off this island.”

“You still think we’ll be rescued?” Nikki asked.

“I know I don’t intend to stay here until I’m an old lady.” She prodded a stack of leaves with the tip of her shoe, cautiously. No trap here. “There’s a way off any island. It’s not as if we’d been locked up. The rest of the world is out there, and there’s only the sea in our way.”

“You want to be build another raft.” That was Manuel. He sounded thoughtful.

Sarah shrugged. “Why not? It was a good idea the first time. It still is.”

“But you heard what Sawyer and Michael said,” Nikki reminded her. “The Others have boats. They destroyed the raft. They won’t let us leave.”

“Maybe Michael just got unlucky,” Sarah argued. She remained ahead, without looking back at her travel companions. “Maybe this time we’d get through. Who knows? We won’t know until we’ve tried.”

“Are you volunteering?” Tom. She thought she could hear a hint of sarcasm in his voice. She looked over her shoulder.

“Yes, actually, I am. I’m not going to ask someone else to do this for me. If in a few weeks –say, by the New Year– we haven’t been rescued, then–” She stopped suddenly as the expression on her three campmates’ faces changed. They had come to an abrupt halt, and were staring right past her, startled and wary. Sarah turned quickly, and found herself looking at a woman standing between the trees barely a few metres away. She tensed, her level of alert soaring.

The woman was in her late fifties or possibly early sixties, and was definitely not one of the castaways. Nor was she the apparition Sarah had seen before; she looked not in the least bit like her mother. She was dressed in light, simple summer clothing, wore fairly short grey hair, and had a kindly, mildly curious expression reflected in her light blue eyes. She was carrying a woven basket, and for one incongruous moment Sarah thought it made her look like the Little Red Riding HoodÂ’s grandmother gone on a reverse trip through the forest to bring jam to her family. She shook the impression off as absurd.

“Oh, well… hello,” the woman said, pleasantly. She spoke English with what was, perhaps, a faint American accent. “Did I startle you? I’m sorry.”

Recovering from his momentary paralysis, Tom moved forward quickly, stepping in front of Sarah protectively, putting a hand on her shoulder. He watched the strange woman cautiously.

“Who are you?”

“Why, I’m Amanda. So interesting to see new faces…” She smiled. “You sound Canadian. Is that right? I don’t know which of you is supposed to be Canadian. I wouldn’t have remembered anyway. Ben would know… Oh, don’t look alarmed. You look like a quartet of startled rabbits.”

Sarah blinked. This was surreal. Slowly, Manuel and Nikki moved closer, joining her.
“Are you… one of the Others?” Nikki asked.

“Is that what you call us?” The woman smiled, gently amused. “It sounds better than ‘the Hostiles’, doesn’t it? That’s what they called us.” She shook her head sadly. “‘Hostiles’, indeed…”

Sarah turned her head slowly to look at Tom, barely daring divert her attention from this woman. She looked harmless, and yetÂ… SheÂ’s one of EthanÂ’s people. One of the ones who tried to kill Charlie. Who kidnapped Claire. Who murdered Scott. Who shot at me!

“Amanda!” Sarah took a half-stumbling step back as a man rushed into view. In his thirties, he had fairly long brown hair… and a rifle, which he quickly raised to point straight at them. He stood protectively by the older woman, and his expression was almost as tense and wary as Sarah’s own. “What the hell are you doing out here? You know you shouldn’t be here! You!” He gestured with the tip of his weapon. “Get back! Get back!” Bemused, she did as he said, raising her hands part-way and displaying her palms to show she was not armed. This totally unexpected situation had, she felt, already slipped out of control. The man stood there facing the four of them, glaring in warning. “How did you know the code to get past the pylons?” he asked Amanda, without looking at her.

“Why?” the latter countered patiently. “Are we supposed to be locked in?”

“Don’t be obtuse. You know what the pylons are for. There’s far worse than them” –he nodded at the four crash survivors– “on this side.”

“I was just bringing food to our neighbours on the beach,” Amanda said, soothingly. She held up her basket, giving Sarah a sympathetic smile. “You do look rather thin, dear. And sleeping out in the open, as you–”

The younger man hushed her urgently.

“Oh, don’t worry so, Tim,” she chided him gently. “We’re all sharing this island now. It’s not polite to point guns at our neighbours.” Stooping with some difficulty, she set her basket down on a patch of moss between the roots of a large tree. “I’ll just leave this here. You can take it if you want. I’m afraid it’s not much for forty or so people, but… There are about forty of you, aren’t there?” Her pale blue eyes observed them with kindly curiosity.

“One fewer since you took Walt,” Manuel muttered. He sounded uncertain how to cope with this bizarre situation. Sarah could well understand that; she felt the same way.

“Shut up!” Tim warned, keeping his rifle raised. He glanced at Amanda. “You have to come back with me. You have no idea who these people” –he gestured at the castaways– “are. Many of them are bad people… very bad people.”

“Well,” Amanda reminded him, “I wasn’t allowed to see the list, so I wouldn’t know. But I assume they’re not all bad.” She gave them a questioning smile. Sarah heard Manuel laugh, harshly.

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this! We are bad people? Who took Michael’s kid, eh? You tell me that! Who blew up the raft? Who killed Scott?”

The man with the rifle gave him a pointed look which, for some reason, made Sarah feel distinctly uneasy. It was as if he were looking straight into them. He was the master of this encounter; he had the upper hand and knew it, and not only because he had a gun. “I don’t think you’re one to talk, Covilhã. Are you? You may not be the criminal some of your friends are, but I bet you don’t always sleep easy at night… hmm?” His voice was a lot calmer now than it had been. “Not quite a clear conscience you’ve got, is it?”

Sarah looked at Manuel uncomfortably. His face was a stony mask, but there was a flicker of anger in his dark eyesÂ… and was that fear? Or guilt?

“And that” –Tim swivelled his rifle to point it at Nikki– “is Fernandez. I think we told you about her.”

“Yes, you did.” Amanda let out a faintly disapproving ‘tsk, tsk’ sound. “Jacob is rather displeased with you, you know,” she told the Hispanic American woman. “And I’m not surprised.” She tilted her head a little. “Yet you seem like such a nice young lady…”

Nikki said nothing. She was looking distinctly ill-at-ease. Sarah looked at her for a moment, then averted her gaze. She did not want to make her feel even worse. But the man’s words had had the intended effect. The question nudged, unwanted but unavoidable, at her mind. She’s guilty of something. Her face says it all. Manuel, too… What did they do? “All right, that’s enough!” Tom said, abruptly. The man with the gun turned to him almost eagerly.

“Mr. Thomas Strange! Here’s one man lucky that his ‘friend’ didn’t talk. Or right now you’d be–” Amanda placed a hand on his arm, gently. He stopped.

“Let them be,” she said softly. “Leave them, for now, with the stirrings of their conscience. What happens to them now isn’t up to us.” She turned to them. “You can still have the food.” She turned, and began to walk away. Tim moved with her, walking backwards to keep his rifle trained on the crash survivors.

“No… no, wait!” Sarah, who had remained quiet the whole while, took half a step forward. Amanda looked back at her. “Wait… If you’re the Others… Walt. Where’s Walt? What have you done to him?”

“What have we done to him…” Tim repeated with a sneer. “What we’re doing for him is something you’re not ready to understand. Any of you. Now get the hell out of here.” He lifted his rifle menancingly. “Go on! Back to your camp. And stay there!”

This time, none of them argued. Sarah, alone, hesitated a moment longer than the others before turning back in the direction of the beach. Her three companions had been reduced to silence. She did not ask, and they said nothing, as they made their way back between the trees.

It was a long, and painfully quiet, walk home.

* * *

Friday, November 19th

Claire’s baby has fallen ill. She’s extremely worried, and so would I be in her place. We have Jack, of course, but very little medicine (most of it hoarded by Sawyer), and no hospital or medical equipment. It’s also brought home to us that all of us are vulnerable – although of course the baby is most vulnerable of us all. How awful, really, to be stuck on an island with no access to medical care! That’s just another unpleasant reality that we’ve been trying not to think about too much. Anyway, I hope the baby is ok. Charlie’s looking very worried for it, but Claire’s not letting him anywhere near. Poor guy. I still wonder why he kidnapped the kid in the first place. Claire hasn’t forgiven him, and I can’t blame her.

On to something really new. TomÂ’s told me th

She stopped, as the pen refused to write any further. She rubbed the tip against the side of her shoe, and tried again. The ink was coming through once more. She nodded, satisfied.

that, she went on, Jack and his gang have actually got a prisoner! No idea where they went and found him, but theyÂ’re holding him at the Swan. And, of course, keeping it all very hush-hush. Tom found out because he was taking a shower when they brought the prisoner in. John and Sayid think the guy is one of the Others, though how long they plan to hold him if he keeps denying it, I really have no idea. TomÂ’s annoyed at them keeping us all in the dark yet again, and quite frankly so am I.

She paused, and chewed the end of her pen for a few moments, thoughtfully. Then she wrote: I think IÂ’m going to go and take a look for myself. She closed her pen, put her diary away, and stood, brushing the sand off her legs as she walked out of her tent into the warm sunshine.

* * *

“Hello? Is anyone there?” The rusty door creaked shut behind her. She wondered whether she would find Jack here in the Swan, and found she was uncertain whether or not she wanted to. Part of her would have liked to confront him with what felt, to her, the umpteenth example of his duplicity. But at the same time, she realised she was not looking forward to yet another confrontation. So it was with some relief that she heard Hurley’s voice echo down to her through the narrow corridor of the bunker.

“Yo, Sarah! Is that you? I’m in the main room. Not the freaky computer room; the other one.” She smiled to herself, and joined him. He was reading the Christie book she had returned to him, his obese bulk lounging back in the sofa next to the gramophone. “Hey there! Everyone’s out. I’m holding the fort. Is there something I can do for you?”

She nodded at his book. “Enjoying it?”

“What? Oh.” He followed her gaze. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s… kinda scary. But it passes the time. And nothing in a book can be quite as weird as what we’ve got on this island.”

“So who do you think did it?” she asked him, still smiling slightly.

“In here?” He held up the book. “Uh, I’m guessing Armstrong. But I usually get it wrong.” He closed the novel, setting it down beside him, and squinted at her queryingly. “You’ve come all this way. Need something?”

Sarah had been looking round the room slowly while she listened to him, wondering where a prisoner might be kept. It did not take her long to figure it out. There was only one possibility, really. She nodded towards the closed door of the armory. “Is he in there?”

“Yeah, they’re keeping him there until they–” He stopped. She smiled. “Dudette, you’re not supposed to know that,” he said unhappily.

“Relax, Hurley,” she soothed him. “I just want to see him. What’s his name?”

“He says he’s called Henry.” Hurley still did not appear entirely comfortable. “Sayid doesn’t believe him.”

“He’s one of the Others?”

“He says he isn’t. But, well…”

“What else could he be, right?” Sarah ageed. She walked over to the locked door. Hurley heaved his weight up off the sofa, and joined her.

“He says he crashed here. In a hot air balloon.”

“I did.” The voice was muffled through the door. It held a touch of indignation, but sounded mostly weary; the accent was clearly American. “Your Arab friend doesn’t believe me.” Sarah cast Hurley a faint look of alarm. She had not realised the man could hear them.

“Still wanna see him?” Hurley asked. She nodded. “Well… ok. But be careful. Listen, uh…” He gestured towards the computer room. “I need to type in the numbers in a few minutes. Can you take the next shift?”

“No problem,” she assured him, relieved that this was turning out to be so easy.

“You remember what they are?” he made sure as he began entering another code, that of the combination locking the door to the armory. She nodded again.

“August 4th, sixteen minutes past three, then 23 and 42.”

“Uh, right.” The door swung open. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Don’t let him out,” he warned her, before disappearing off to the other room. Sarah pushed the door further open, and stepped inside, a little anxious as to what she would find. She stood in the entranceway, looking down upon a rather thin, dark-haired man with a bruised face, torn clothing and a bandage over his shoulder. He was watching her warily, almost cringing, through bulging eyes.

“H-hello,” he said, nervously. “I haven’t seen you before. How many of there are you?”

“I don’t think I’m at liberty to say.” She kept her voice carefully neutral. The man got to his feet slowly. “I can tell you I’m Sarah, though.”

“Sarah… I’m Henry. Henry Gale. I… I arrived her in a hot air balloon. Crashed… just as you did.”

“Yes, Hurley’s told me your story.” She maintained an impassive look on her face, too, and made certain not to move too far from the door. Now that she was actually here, she was not entirely certain how to cope with this frightened-looking prisoner who had appeared in their little world seemingly out of nowhere. She felt a little guilty, standing here, appearing as one of those who was confining him. Holding him here was entirely illegal of course, but then there had been no law here, no pretence of law for a very long time. He looks so scared, so confused, so… innocent. But that could all be an act. There was no way of knowing.

“And of course you don’t believe me.”

She shrugged. “It doesn’t seem very likely, does it? I can’t blame them for thinking you’re one of Them.”

He watched her, quietly for a moment, as if assessing her. “So what are you here for? You don’t look as if you’ve come to torture me.”

She looked at him, startled. “Is that what–?” She took in the bruises on his face. “Who? John?”

“Sayid.” He met her gaze. “Oh, but John let him. Encouraged him, even.”

Sarah winced. “I’m sorry.” She shifted her feet uncomfortably. “I… wouldn’t have expected it of them. Especially not from Sayid.” Henry gave her what was no doubt a meaningful look, but the meaning was unclear to her. It seemed he was not going to say anything further; in fact, he looked as if he was waiting. She coughed uncertainly. “I just came to ask you a few questions.”

“Questions . I’ll answer any I can. It’ll be a relief to have a civilised conversation for once.” He gestured at the crude bench against the wall. “Won’t you sit down?”

“I prefer to stand,” she replied, automatically. She did not intend to move any closer to him. “I want to ask you about the Others,” she added, coming straight to the point.

“Then I’m afraid I can’t help you.” He sat down once more, and lowered his head to gaze at the dark, rough floor of the narrow, emptied armory, now converted into a most uncomfortable-looking cell. “The first I heard of these ‘Others’ was when your friends accused me of being one of them.” He looked up at her. “Perhaps you can tell me who they are?”

From the other room, the alarm sounded, then stopped. Hurley was entering the numbers. Sarah shook her head. “I have no idea. They’re the people who have been threatening and attacking us ever since we got here.”

Henry appeared genuinely interested. “Why are they doing that?”

“You tell me,” she said calmly. He sighed.

“This conversation isn’t going to get us anywhere, is it?” He leaned back a little against the wall, and closed his eyes. “But do keep talking, please. Keep asking me questions. I’ve been starved of human company… even if it’s the company of a goaler.”

She watched him in silence for several long seconds.
“Tell me about the capsule pile,” she said at last. He opened his left eye open.

“The what?”

“The big pile of plastic capsules, with notebooks in them. Dates back to twenty years ago. Almost on the other side of the island from here.” She paused. “But then, you know exactly what I’m talking about. I want to know what it is. What the purpose of those notebooks was. Who wrote them, and why. Who was supposed to pick them up. Everything.”

Henry listened, then nodded slowly, without a word. He stretched his legs, grimacing a little as though in pain, then turned his head to her again. His eerily bulging eyes fixed her with probing curiosity. “You know, it’s odd that Sayid, Jack, John… none of them have asked me about that.”

She tried to hold his gaze. She felt all of a sudden even more uncomfortable, as though the roles of questioner and questioned had just been reversed. As though he were reading into her very silence… and laying her secrets bare. “Oh?” she said, unconvincingly. Henry smiled.

“They don’t know about it. You haven’t told them. Well, well… Now why would you keep something from them like that?” Sarah took half a step forward, then stopped herself. She had been about to ask him to keep his voice down. She bit her lip. I should leave… “That wasn’t a rhetorical question, by the way, in case you were wondering,” he said almost casually. “I really am wondering why you’re hiding things from your friends.”

“Do you think they’re not hiding anything from me?” she retorted, despite herself. There was an edge of bitterness in her voice.

“I know they’re hiding things from you,” Henry assured her calmly. He gave a slight, polite smile, before she could press him on his cryptic remark. “Could I trouble you for a glass of water? The air is very dry in here.”

She sighed. “Yes, of course.” She could not take it upon herself to set him free –and was not certain she wanted to– but she was not going to deny him vital water. “Sit tight,” she told him after a moment’s hesitation. She backed out of the cell cautiously, then turned into the nearby kitchen area. Someone had left a gun by the sink, and she picked it up with a faint grimace as she filled a glass from the tap. She turned back towards the door, and found Henry standing in the dooway, looking round the main living room with open curiosity. She tensed. “Get back in there!” she told him, more sharply than she had intended. Mechanically, she raised her hand holding the glass, splashing water out of it with the abruptness of her move. The next moment, she was holding up the gun and pointing it at him. “Get back inside! Now!”

Henry did not move. Instead, he looked faintly amused.
“You’re not going to shoot me, Sarah. You’re not the killing type. Besides, you’ve never held a gun before in your life.” He looked around again slowly, his gaze lingering on the door to the computer room. “All quiet. Your friend Hurley has gone.” A slight smile. “It’s just you and me now.”

Her eyes narrowed, tensely. “Hurley?” she called loudly. There was no reply. She kept the gun pointed at him. “Back inside! I’m warning you!”

“All right.” He held up one hand, soothingly. “All right, we’ll play it that way. See? I’m going back into my cell.” She followed him in, slowly, going no further than the doorway as he sat on the bench at the far end of the tiny armory. He looked at her expectantly. Waiting for me to make the next move. She set the glass down very slowly on the hard ground, watching him the whole while, and straightened again. She lowered the gun carefully, but kept it in her hand.

“This isn’t a game,” she told him curtly.

“It’s whatever you want it to be,” he told her calmly. “I’m letting you pull the strings. I’m just the prisoner.”

“And stop talking in riddles!” She paused, took a breath to steady herself. “How do you know I’ve never held a gun?” Let’s go for something simple. Perhaps she would actually get a straight answer. His bulging eyes met her gaze, unreadable but no longer frightened. Or no longer pretending to be frightened.

“It’s obvious by the way you hold it,” he said, calmly. “Well… that, and I know everything there is to know about you, Sarah Ng.” His fixed gaze never varied.

His words –the fact that he had spoken her full name– sank in only slowly. When it had, she felt suddenly very dizzy. For a second, the cell in front of her, this strange little man with his bruised face and even stranger eyes, swam out of focus. She found herself leaning against the door for support, and straightened quickly. “What?” she whispered. Any control she had felt she had on this conversation was now gone.

“You want details? It’s your own life, Sarah. You know it as well as I do.” His voice was almost unnaturally calm. “You were born in Sydney. Until you boarded Oceanic flight 815 for Los Angeles, you were working as a sales assistant in a clothes shop. Not the most interesting of jobs, but when you’ve finished your phd you’re hoping to do a lot better. Maybe work as a consultant for some large company trading in China?” He kept on looking at her. “Your mother, Cassandra Ng, born Cassandra Bentham, left you when you were about six months old. Your father raised you alone. She has a flat in Los Angeles, which I suppose is the reason why you were on that plane.” He paused. “You’ve travelled before. You went to study in Paris.” His tone became thoughtful. She watched him, mesmerised and with a growing, inexplicable sense of horror, bracing herself. “While in Paris, you took part in some illegal protest march, during which you were arrested for intent to commit grievous bodily harm on a police officer. You were found guilty–”

“Enough!” She stared at him, aghast. “All that… How do you know all that? How? Who are you? Who the hell are you?” Having been cut off in mid-tirade, her mysterious captive became tight-lipped. He watched her, his face impassive, silent. “Tell me!” she demanded, almost shouting. “Enough secrets and mysteries! Tell me how you know?”

“‘Enough secrets?’” He smiled, thinly. “Pardon me for saying so, but that’s rather rich, coming from you.”

“You didn’t crash here in a hot air balloon! You’re one of them! Why are you telling me, when you lied to Sayid? How do you know all this? Do you think I won’t tell them? Do you think I won’t let John know that you’re one of the Others?” No reply. Sarah pressed on, the words tumbling out of her: “My mother… You know about my mother. What else do you know about her? Have you seen her? Have you met her?”

Again, a faintly amused smile. “No, Sarah, I haven’t met her. I haven’t seen her.” He looked right at her. “Have you?”

She drew a sharp breath, and took a step back. Henry nodded. “Ah, you have. You’ve seen her here, on the island. Interesting. Very interesting, in fact… Though I can’t say I’m surprised. Jacob doesn’t make mistakes.” He seemed to delve into his own thoughts, barely seeing her.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Her frustration and confusion boiling up inside, Sarah was on the verge of losing control. Never had answers been so close, and yet they felt so far out of reach. “Oh my god,” she gasped as realisation suddenly hit her. “Is she one of you?”

Henry gave her a look of what appeared to be genuine surprise, then laughed, a very brief laugh. “No, no, Sarah, she’s not one of us,” he told her, amused. “As I said, I’ve never met her. All she is to me is a name in your file.”

“My file?” She shook her head. She was not going to be baited. She needed to find some way to steer this conversation back onto a track of her choosing, and perhaps–

“Ethan,” the prisoner said calmly, “reported that you were getting very friendly with Thomas Strange. Are you still?” He looked at her questioningly. When she failed to reply, speechless, he went on, his tone a serious warning: “Be careful. Don’t trust him.” The briefest of pauses. “You made a mistake in Paris, but you’re still a good person.”

When she found her voice again, Sarah demanded, with unconcealed anger: “‘Are you saying Tom is a bad person?” There was no reply. “Why, what’s he done?” Again, no reply. Obviously, Henry was choosing to be selective in the information he gave her. Or misinformation, she reminded herself darkly. For all she knew, every word now would be a string of lies. Time to try a new approach. “All right, then. If Tom’s my friend, Ethan was yours. Now you explain to me why he did what he did. Kidnapped Claire, strung Charlie up from a tree, threatened us, killed one of us. What does that make him, your friend, if not a bad person? Or is it good to murder people now?”

Henry sighed, and scratched his bare shoulder, around the pad over his unseen wound. “Fair enough point. But believe me, Ethan was never my friend. And I have to ask you to believe me, too, when I say that he was acting on his own when he hurt your people. He was never given those orders. I don’t judge you by what the other people sharing your camp have done. Don’t judge us on the mistakes of one man. Ethan paid dearly for his mistake. Let’s leave it at that.”

“Oh, how very conveniant.” She smirked.

“Yes, I can see how it looks. But perhaps I can help you see another perspective.” He sat up straighter, and looked at her with an eagerness she had not yet seen in his eyes. The eagerness almost of a zealot seeking a new convert, she thought, and shivered. Henry did not seem to notice. “The people you’re living with? You don’t know them. You don’t know them at all, Sarah. You’ve been walking amongst them without seeing them for what they really are, and it’s more than time for you to start seeing. You wanted answers? How about this?” He paused, and moistened his lips, his gaze never straying from her face. “Let’s start with Kate, shall we? Kate Austen.”

“She’s a convict on the run,” Sarah interrupted, calmly.

“Oh, so you know that. Good. You may believe me, then. I assume you don’t know what it is she was convicted for? No? I thought not.” He peered at her intently. “She blew up her father. Tucked him into bed one night, then blew up the whole house and drove off on her motorbike. She’s a convicted murderer. Even her own mother is terrified of her. Sawyer. How about Sawyer? His real name is James Ford. He’s a con man. Yes,” he said at the expression on her face, “I can see you’re not surprised. But this may surprise you. Just before he left Sydney and got onto the same plane as you did, he shot and killed a man in cold blood. Premeditated murder. Nikki Fernandez, and her Brazilian boyfriend. They planned and carried out the murder of her employer. Poisoned him, without qualm or remorse, to steal his diamonds. They’ve probably still got them now.” Sarah listened, without a word. Her face was grave. She felt numb inside, and did not interrupt. “Ana-Lucia Cortez,” he went on. “She arranged for a burglar to be released from custody so she could murder him one night in a dark street; a premeditated crime. Sayid Jarrah. The man who did this.” He pointed at his battered face. “Sayid Jarrah was a soldier in the army of Saddam Hussein. Officially, he was a communications officer. But he also conducted interrogations. And by interrogations, I mean he tortured opponents to the regime.” His gaze remained fixed on hers. “He also shot and killed his superior officer.” She met his gaze, her eyes hard. Inside, her emotions, her thoughts were a senseless, tangled jumble. She had no idea what to say, what to think… what to believe, what to feel. Henry’s eyes bore into her. His words impressed themselves upon her mind, crystal clear through the confusion clouding her thoughts. There was the earnestness of almost desperate honesty in his voice.

“They’re deceiving you, Sarah. They’re deceiving you as to who the bad guys are here. You’re living among some very bad people.”

She shook her head. Too much, there was too much for her to take in. She had wanted answers, and now she felt flooded, overwhelmed.

“Why are you telling me this?”

He leaned back against the wall. Once more he was a pitiful figure, frail and bruised, his bug-like eyes blinking. But there was a depth of intelligence within them that she found frightening.

“You’re smart enough to work that out by yourself.”

The outside door to the Swan creaked open. She jumped, then exhaled quietly, trying to steady herself. It was only someone coming in for the next shift. Her gaze lingered on the captive Other a few seconds longer, then, without speaking, she stepped back out of the cell, and swung the door shut. The lock clicked into place. She let out a shuddering sigh of relief. Her legs were like jelly, and it was all she could do to remain standing. She placed the gun down by the sink where she had found it, her arm trembling slightly.

From behind the locked door, HenryÂ’s voice reached her as she walked away.

“Thank you for the water, Sarah.”

* * *